Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-07-16
"FOR MY COUNTRY S SAKE"
The Beauty and Dignity of True Pa
triot SIN.


From a speech delivered at Peeks-
kill on the Fourth of July, 1876, by
Henry Ward Beecher, we extract the
following paragraphs on the country's
elements Of growth and the beauties of
patriotism:
Look back, then, through the hum
dred years of our national history.
They are to me like the ascending of
stairs, some Of which are broader,
narrower, some with higher rising and
some with less than the others; but on
the whole there has been a steady as
cent in intelligence, in conscience, in
purity, in industry, in happiness, in the
art of living well collectively, and we
stand to-day higher than at any other
time. Our burdens are aea bites.
In another hundred years not one Of
us will be here. But it does not matter
so much to rs who come and 60. or
what takes place IN the future, except
SO far rs u influence is concerned.
When a hundred years hence the I'M
telling sun that saw Arnold and Andre
and Washington, but will not tell us
one word of history, shall shine On
these enchanted hills and on this ua-
changing river-then it is for us to
have set in motion, or to have given
renewed impulse to those great causes,
Intellectual, moral. social and political,
VIII ch have rolled our prosperity TO
such a height.
To every young man here that is be-
ginning life, let me say listen not TO
those insidious teachers who tell You
that patriotism is Il sham, and that all
public men are corrupt CT corrup,ers.
Men in public or private life are cor
rupt here and there, but let me say to
YOU, no corruption i'll government
would be half 50 bad rs to have the
seeds of unbelIef in public admiuistra-
ton sown in the minds OF the young. IL
you teach the young that their chief
magistrates, their cabinets and their
representatives are of course corrupt,
what will that be but TO teach them to
be themselves corrupt? | stand here
to bear witness and say that publicity
may consist with virtue and does.
There are men that serve the public for
the public, though they themselves
thrive by it also. | would SOW in your
minds a romance Of patriotism and
love Of country that shall be necessary
to the love which you have for your
own households, and would
say to every mother that teaches
her child to pray, next to the petition
'Our Father which art ia heaven" let
him learn the petition, ''Our Father
land" and so Let our children grow
up to love God. to love man, and to
love their country, and to be glad to
serve their country rs well as their God
and their fellow men, though it may be
necessary that they should lay down
their lives to serve it..
! honor the unknown ones who used
to walk here, and who fell in battle. |
honor, too. every arm)ess man, every
limping soldier, who through patriot
ism went to the battlefield and came
back lame and crippled, and bears
manfully and hcroically his depriva-
ton. What though he find no occupa-
tionp What though he be forgotten?
He has in him the imperishable sweet
ness of this thought: Il did it for my
country's sake" For Gods sake and
for your country's sake, live, and you
shall live forever.